I frowned and jerked my head back in disbelief. “She’s his wife, Mom.”
“I know,” she said and took a seat on the small ottoman in front of me. “But . . . this is hard, Gabe. Okay?”
Her copper-colored eyes looked up at me, and in that moment I felt as if I was that ten- year-old boy again. Our exchange took us back to the days when she would try to calm me down after I’d get upset at my father for leaving us to go back to them. Tears rolled down my mother’s face, and I reached out to wipe them away. Maybe it was me who didn’t understand the kind of love they had. Maybe I wasn’t meant to understand the shit. Maybe theirs was a kind of love that was truly unconditional.
For the next few hours I hung out with my mother without a care in the world. We talked, played a game of poker, which my father had taught us both. We spoke about things going on in the world, and then she asked me about my love life. I quickly changed the subject. She laughed, and our conversation flowed easily like that for the rest of my time there. I decided that if my father showed back up, I wouldn’t even mention a word of what had happened between us. I’d just let it be. If they were happy, then so be it.
Later my mom and I sat in the kitchen, eating a quick dinner she’d thrown together. It was good not to have to eat out, and hanging with my mom also took my mind off of Chyanne. We were busy talking about how happy we were when the president won a second term when there was a knock on the door. My mom smiled.
“That must be your father. He said he’d be back around this time. He wanted to go see your sister and talk with her for a bit,” she said as she wiped her mouth and stood. “And, Gabe?”
I looked up from my plate of black-eyed peas and fried chicken long enough to answer, “Yeah, Ma?”
“Thank you. Thank you for finally understanding.”
I smiled, because I still didn’t understand, but I respected it.
“You’re welcome.”
Her smile got brighter, and when the second knock came, she rushed from the kitchen to answer. There was no way I could take that look from my mother’s face again. She looked genuinely happy, and in the end, that was all I wanted. I sat there wondering if I could ever love like my mother did. She obviously loved my father regardless of his faults. In hindsight, I realized that kind of love was rare. Most people claimed to love unconditionally, but as soon as the shit hit the hand they fanned with, it was all in the wind.
“Oh my God!”
My mother’s shrill cry made me leap from the table and rush down the hall to the front door. I was confused. My mother was down on her knees, and two uniformed Atlanta police officers, one black and one white, were trying to help her up from the floor.
“No, no, no . . . no, God, please no,” she cried as they each held one of her arms.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Once we found what was left of his cell phone in the wreckage, we used the SIM card to get to his contacts. You were saved under wife, and we looked you up to get your address. We’re sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, Mrs. Williams, but your husband is dead,” the white officer said to her.
My heart got caught in my throat. My mother wasn’t Mrs. Williams. She was Dixie Pickens, so I started praying like hell they had the wrong house. I rushed up to pick my mother up from the floor. She was dead weight in my arms. I looked at the two officers. My mother’s wails were threatening to deafen me.
“I’m sorry, but what’s going on?” I asked the officers. My whole body was shaking.
“Do you know a Xavier Williams?” the black officer asked me.
The rain was pouring down hard, and if I had been in my right mind, I would have invited them in.
“Yes. He’s my father.”
“He’s been killed in a car accident, sir. Tractor-trailer was going too fast around the ramp, flipped over on top of his car. . . .”
The officer couldn’t even finish the sentence and looked uncomfortable when my mother started to scream uncontrollably in my arms. My mind replayed the events of the day. My heart felt as if someone was trying to rip it from my chest. I thought back to when I passed the wreckage, and tears started to roll down my face. It was my father’s car that I’d seen crushed and burning underneath the big rig. The prayer I’d said for that family had been for me and my mother.
I couldn’t even tell the officers “Thank you.” I slowly closed the door in their faces, picked my mother up in my arms, and carried her to her bedroom. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know who to call. So I laid my mother’s trembling body in her bed, then turned my back to her as I sat down beside her. All I could think about was the last time I’d seen or spoken to my father. There had been no “I love you,” no “I’ll talk to you soon, son.”
My sorrow took over, and I kicked a chair sitting by my mother’s bed across the room. It crash-landed against her bathroom door. Her sobs shook her body, which in turn shook the bed.
“Fuck, man!” I stood up and punched a hole in the nearest wall. “Fuck, Pops, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Damn . . .”
Gabe
“Gabe?”
I could hear someone calling me but thought I was dreaming.
I felt weight on the bed, like someone had sat next to me. The voice rang out again. “Gabriel.” She shook me gently this time.
It was hours later, well into the night. I was still at my mother’s house, had fallen asleep in bed beside her. We had cried together, had just lain there for hours and cried. She had laid her head on my chest and had shed tears until she couldn’t anymore. The rain was still coming down hard, and now thunder and lightning had joined the party. I opened my eyes to look at my mother. She had black leather gloves on and a long trench coat. She had tied a rain bonnet around her head.
“Wake up, son. I need you to take me to Ce-Ce.”
“Why?” I asked, still halfway asleep and more than confused.
“The officers came to me because they thought I was Xavier’s wife. Cecilia doesn’t know her husband isn’t coming back home, son. I have to tell her.”
My mother’s voice came out soft and even. Her eyes were still red from all the crying she’d done. She’d changed into jeans and a sweater. It took me a minute, but I registered what she was saying and pulled myself from the bed. When I got up, I felt like I just wanted to fall back down. So I stood still for a moment. My mother walked up behind me and laid a comforting hand on my back.
“Son?” she said to me.
“Yeah, Ma.” I looked down at her with fresh tears in my eyes.
“Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next year, but do know that this too, this heartache you feel, this too shall pass.”
Her voice caught as she wrapped her arms around me. I was her big baby, towered at least a foot and a half over her, just as my father had done. And just like with him, she had a way of bringing me down to her level. I held my mother close to me. I had never thought, not once, that I wouldn’t see my father again. I hadn’t even heard his voice, didn’t get a chance to apologize to him. That shit hurt, and it hurt like hell.
My mother and I pulled up to my father’s Duluth home some time later, the same one where my father and I had had one of our last fights.
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked my mother.
She squeezed my hand and nodded. “I have to.”
I got out of the car and walked around to open the door for my mother. I didn’t think the bonnet would keep her much dry, so I held her big black umbrella over her head for her. I dreaded walking to the front door. It was as if I could feel my father’s presence all around me. My mother walked up and rang the doorbell. We waited in silence. The only thing that could be heard was the heavy downpour. No answer. She rang the doorbell again. When a light quickly flipped on in the house, my mother gripped my hand. She hadn’t seen her ex–best friend in years.
“I swear, Xavier, if you leave your keys one more damn time,” Cecilia fussed loudly. “Next time you’re at Dixie�
�s house, at least have enough damn common sense to wash the damn smell of her cheap Avon perfume off you too,” she continued before snatching the door open.
The shock that immediately registered across her face couldn’t have been more real than if you’d seen it for yourself. Her long salt-and-pepper sister locks blew around her burnt cinnamon face as she pulled her robe tighter, trying to shield herself from the wind. Just as my mother looked damn good for her age, so did Cecilia. When my dad picked his women, he picked them well. Cecilia stared at my mother for a long time. I couldn’t read her expression, had no idea what she was thinking. There stood the woman who used to be her friend and the product that her husband and that same best friend had created.
“What in the hell do you want, Dixie? You have some damn nerve showing up—”
My mother cut off her rant. “May we come in?”
Cecilia looked perturbed. “What? No. What in God’s name for? Xavier isn’t here. I’d assumed he was with you,” she said sarcastically.
When she saw that neither I nor my mother was fazed by her comments, she turned the porch light on and took a good look at our faces.
“What’s going on, De-De?” she finally asked my mother.
They had been Ce-Ce and De-De growing up, according to the stories my mother had told. Cecilia’s voice cracked when she asked the question.
“Xavier is . . .” my mother began and then stopped, like she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “Xavier is dead, Ce-Ce.”
Cecilia looked like she had been slapped. “What? Is this some fucking joke, De-De? How dare you come to my house and insult me like this?”
Those were the things she said, but judging by the way her eyes started to water, she knew what my mother was saying was true.
“Please tell me this is some sick joke you and your bastard son came up with just to see me hurting,” she pleaded. She was hurting, trying to figure out if her husband was really never coming back home.
My mother’s grip tightened on my hand. I looked down at her to see the tears still rolling down her face.
“Oh God, De-De, please . . . please tell me . . .” Cecilia begged.
But we couldn’t tell her that, because it wasn’t the truth. When her tears fell and she held on to the door to keep from falling, I dropped my head. Fresh tears assaulted me.
“Oh God . . . oh Jesus, no. How? How do you know?” she all but screamed at my mother.
“The police came by the house and told me. He was killed in a car accident, Cecilia. A tractor-trailer flipped over on top of his car,” my mother answered.
“Why?” Cecilia asked shrilly after a while, still in her own brand of denial. When her lips parted, slobber stitched the top one and the bottom together. “Why would they tell you and not me, his wife?”
“They thought I was his wife because . . . because he had me, had my number saved in his phone under wife.”
Cecilia shook her head from side to side and turned her lips upside down while she kept repeating “No” over and over again.
“No. You’re a goddamned liar, Dixie! No!” she yelled, then slammed the door in our faces.
She didn’t invite us in. There would be no grieving together as best friends. The bad blood had gone on for too long. For over forty years they’d fought over and loved the same man. The love they had for one another was still lost.
“Come on, son,” my mother said. “I did what I had to do.”
Chyanne
I looked at the flowers on my desk and smiled before walking out. It was the end of the day, and I was on my way home. Kay had asked if AJ could stay after school a little while longer since it was her day to do the after-school program. I started to feel sick to my stomach, so after stopping by Shelley’s office to tell her I was leaving, I quickly rushed to my car so I could get home. I talked to Jamie, and he asked if we could go out for dinner, but I didn’t think I was going to make it. He wanted to talk about what had happened between us yesterday morning. I didn’t know what to make of it, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that it gave me pause. Jamie had never been that rough and aggressive, not to the point where it felt as if he was using his dick to stab me over and over. Something was wrong with us, and we needed to figure out what it was.
It didn’t take me long to make it home after I stopped by Wal-Mart and picked up a few things. I also stopped by my old place to see when April would be leaving. She hadn’t gotten the job at Southern Regional, but she had gotten the one she applied for at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital. She told me she would be out as soon as she got her first paycheck. She still couldn’t get Jo-Jo to talk to her, but that was her own fault.
Thoughts of Gabe crept into my head and had me sitting in my car a little longer than I’d planned once I got home. I laid my head on the steering wheel for a moment. What in God’s name was I doing? I knew I needed to put any thoughts of Gabe and me to bed. Aric would probably try to kill me if he found out, and I had no idea what Jamie would do. That had me more fearful of what Aric would do, actually. Still, when Jamie was mad, he was silent, and I knew that meant he could be deadly. I opened the door and pulled the bags out with me. I was so tired and just wanted to lie down.
I didn’t stop until I made it upstairs to my bedroom. Knowing I would probably sleep until Jamie got home, I called Aric and asked him to bring AJ home for me.
“Yeah, I can, but why can’t you do it?” he asked me.
I was just happy he didn’t snap at me. Since I’d stood him up, he hadn’t been all that happy with me.
“I don’t feel well right now, Aric,” I told him as I kicked my shoes off, then started to unbutton my suit jacket. “So will you please bring him home for me?”
“Sure. Now, what’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I’m just feeling sick. It’s probably because of the constant changes in the weather. I hope I’m not coming down with the flu.”
“A’ight then. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”
“Okay. Thank you, Aric.”
“Yeah.”
Once I hung up with him, I pulled off my pants and stockings, then walked into the bathroom to wash my face. I pulled my hair into a ponytail before turning the lights off, then crawled into bed . . . the bed I shared with Jamie, with thoughts of Gabriel on my mind. Since we’d been texting one another, I’d found that he would often creep into my mind. I thought about calling Kay and asking her to diagnose me, because obviously I was losing my mind. Strangely enough, though, since Gabe and I had started talking, those feelings that I had for Aric had gone from a blazing inferno to only a simmer. Gabe was easy to talk to. Although I hadn’t told him what had happened to Jamie, I did tell him that my relationship was going through changes. We didn’t talk to one another as much as we texted, and I was glad for that. It didn’t make me feel as if I was betraying Jamie. I picked up my phone and sent Gabe another text. Sure I’d said I would stop, but maybe I’d stop tomorrow.
I didn’t remember what my last thoughts were before I closed my eyes. Sleep came easy for me. I was awakened hours later by someone ringing my doorbell. It took me a moment to get my bearings, but when I did, I looked at the clock. It was six thirty in the evening. I grabbed my robe and made my way down to the door. I didn’t bother to ask who it was. I looked through the peephole and saw it was Kay.
“Hi,” I greeted her through a semi-sleepy haze.
The rain just wasn’t going to let up. Kay rushed in. She had her shoulders bunched up and her hands in her pockets, like she was frozen stiff. She was dressed in a navy blue button-down dress shirt and khaki pants, AJ’s school colors.
“Hey,” she greeted back. “I wanted to stop by and check on you. Aric said you weren’t feeling well.”
I closed the door and locked it before walking to the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before responding.
“Do you want some water?” I asked Kay, who had followed me into the kitchen.
She shook her h
ead. “No, I’m good.”
I took a sip of the water. “I don’t know why. Think I may be coming down with something.”
“Yeah, this weather is pretty bad. I keep hand sanitizer on my desk at work. Flu season,” she said. “I brought you some green tea, honey, and lemon. If you want, add a shot of brown or white liquor to it, and you should be feeling good in no time.”
She took her jacket off and sat on one of the stools at the island. She pulled a Whole Foods bag from her purse and placed it on the island top.
“Thank you, Kay. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. Are things going better with you and Jamie?”
I was about to sit down so we could talk when I felt my stomach churning. I shook my head and was about to say something, but before I could, I slapped my hand over my mouth. Although I tried to run to the bathroom, I’d thrown up enough times to know that I wasn’t going to make it, so I ran to the trash can. The contents of my stomach spilled over my hand and through my fingers, leaving a trail on the floor behind me. I threw up all I could, so much so that my eyes watered and throat burned. I stood up when I thought I was done, but I quickly knew that I wasn’t. This time I rushed to the bathroom near the laundry room and fumbled with the bathroom doorknob, trying to open the door, but I couldn’t. Kay rushed over and shoved it open for me. By the time I made it to the toilet, it felt as if I was going to throw up my whole digestive tract.
“Oh God, Chyanne,” Kay said. “Where’re your towels, Lysol, and bleach?” she asked me.
I sat down next to the toilet and propped my arms on top of it. My head started to hurt as my chest heaved up and down.
“Look in the laundry room. There are some towels in the dryer, and everything else is there too.”
I sat there while Kay cleaned up my mess. She also gave me a hot, soapy, wet towel so that I could wipe my face. I finally got up off the floor, feeling weak. I pulled out one of the new toothbrushes Jamie and I kept downstairs and brush my teeth as best I could. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Kay was spraying down the island, the floor, and the trash can with Lysol. She’d taken out the trash and mopped the area where my vomit had spilled on the floor.
Tell Me No Lies Page 17